Writespiration #17

You can do this with a dictionary, but one of my favourite websites when I am really stuck in a writers block rut, is One Word where it does it for you. Every day or every couple of days – I forget now, it generates a new word at random. It has a time limit of 60 seconds. It’s a sprint to get as many words down as you can, and then if you choose to, you can click submit after the 60 second timer finishes. You can see other people’s submissions, which I like to do. But I chose this as a writespiration because it has genuinely inspired me before, and got me out of a hole too.

I thought I would share some of the one word challenges I have done – I do cheat sometimes, when I get in the flow I tend to just keep going rather than sticking to the 60 second limit, but anyway – you can see how it works from my examples:

Grateful

I would never be grateful. She was meant to love me, and she let them cut my arm off. My arm. My only source of income, how can I ever be an artist without my tools, my hands are my life.

“David, you were going to die,” She pleaded.

“Fuck you Marie,” I spat. I glared at her with a hate so penetrating I thought it would consume me.

“So I should have let you die then?” She said throwing her arms up in the air.

“I wish I were dead. I am nothing now. Nothing,” I couldn’t even look at her. Every time I tried to look into those sea green eyes I used to love I felt sick. My stomach ached to be whole again. She had taken everything from me. I am not whole. I am not a man anymore. I am nothing.

I sank into hospital bed pleading it to take me to whatever was next. I wanted it to swallow my body and let me die in peace.

Ash

I stood in front of the charred remains of my home and let my arm drift through the air as flakes of silvery ash kissed my skin. I was numb. Everything I owned was gone. Forever. I had no history, no memories, nothing.

Crept

The guilt crept across my skin like waves creeping across a darkened shore. It was suffocating. Every pore was being strangled, oxygen exiled from my throat. I dropped to my knees and clawed at the dirt. Pushing my face hard into grass I inhaled dirt and leaves desperately hoping to choke the pain away. My last shred of energy drained out of me in a pathetic swipe to the grass. I just laid there silent and still till the cold ground had penetrated through to my bones. My soul was shattered and empty. He was gone. And it was my fault.

Moon

As the sixth moon hurtled round the third moon of Uriah, we knew this was the end. The apocalypse had been predicted and speculated about for months but this really was it. It grew so fast that the whole planet knew there was only a matter of minutes before it smashed into the Earth and obliterated mankind.

And instead of Mrs Black frantically making love to me or spending our time confessing our love or even our regrets, she picked up the Hoover an started cleaning.

“Listen Sach, if we’re all going to die, the house at least needs to be tidy for when we come back.”

“Babe I don’t think it matt…”

Hollow

I watched as every word I said rippled through the air and hit her. One by one, her eyes became more hollow and vacant with each word. I didn’t think she would ever recover.

Ocean

It was the only way in. Through the sewer system attached to the ocean. I fucking hated deep water; it was the thought of all the fish and sea bugs touching my feet and legs without me seeing what they were. I shuddered. No matter how much I didn’t want to get off the boat and into the blackened water, I wasn’t going to let the bitch beat me, and that meant taking a deep-sea swim in the middle of the night.

“Suck it up Toni,” I said, and put the clunky breathing piece into my mouth and slipped into the Icey cold waves.